To proceed to a consideration of the merits of Paradise Lost, in the most essential point of view, I mean as to the poetry of character and passion.  I shall say nothing of the fable, or of other technical objections or excellences; but I shall try to explain at once the foundation of the interest belonging to the poem.  I am ready to give up the dialogues in Heaven, where, as Pope justly observes, “God the Father turns a school-divine”; nor do I consider the battle of the angels as the climax of sublimity, or the most successful effort of Milton’s pen.  In a word, the interest of the poem arises from the daring ambition and fierce passions of Satan, and from the account of the paradisaical happiness, and the loss of it by our first parents.  Three-fourths of the work are taken up with these characters, and nearly all that relates to them is unmixed sublimity and beauty.  The two first books alone are like two massy pillars of solid gold.

Satan is the most heroic subject that ever was chosen for a poem; and the execution is as perfect as the design is lofty.  He was the first of created beings, who, for endeavouring to be equal with the highest, and to divide the empire of heaven with the Almighty, was hurled down to hell.  His aim was no less than the throne of the universe; his means, myriads of angelic armies bright, the third part of the heavens, whom he lured after him with his countenance, and who durst defy the Omnipotent in arms.  His ambition was the greatest, and his punishment was the greatest; but not so his despair, for his fortitude was as great as his sufferings.  His strength of mind was matchless as his strength of body; the vastness of his designs did not surpass the firm, inflexible determination with which he submitted to his irreversible doom, and final loss of all good.  His power of action and of suffering was equal.  He was the greatest power that was ever overthrown, with the strongest will left to resist or to endure.  He was baffled, not confounded.  He stood like a tower; or

“------As when Heaven’s fire
Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines.”

He was still surrounded with hosts of rebel angels, armed warriors, who own him as their sovereign leader, and with whose fate he sympathises as he views them round, far as the eye can reach; though he keeps aloof from them in his own mind, and holds supreme counsel only with his own breast.  An outcast from Heaven, Hell trembles beneath his feet, Sin and Death are at his heels, and mankind are his easy prey.

“All is not lost; th’ unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what else is not to be overcome,”